


Measured

by MoiraiThanatoio



Series: House of Odin [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Daddy Issues, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, M/M, Paranoid Bosses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoiraiThanatoio/pseuds/MoiraiThanatoio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Tony is still wishing he was prone to hallucinations, Nick Fury finds some details can't be overlooked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measured

Bored and unattended, it was lunacy for any Shield doctor to think that Tony Stark would stay where he’d been put. Chewing noisily, he had interfaced his personal computer with the medical devices to turn off their monitoring functions. Without the threat of blaring alarms, he had slowly and methodically unstrung himself from the contraptions holding him in the bed.

Then, with a stretch, a sigh, and another noisy bite, Tony went to find himself a cup of coffee.

*~*

It was too quiet for comfortable with too much background noise for somber. The Avengers lounge, more of a glorified break room, found its few occupants oddly disjointed. Natasha breakfasted silently at the back of the room while Clint was half in the depths of the fridge, presumably speaking to himself. Steve was staring into his coffee cup as if it might provide untold mysteries.

Tony stepped in and closed the door behind him with a thunk. “Well, the medical bay was cheerier than this.”

There was a bang as Clint jerked upright, a motion quickly stopped by not first removing himself from the opening made by the fridge door. Tony shot him a look and just kept his distance as he went straight for the coffee maker. 

“Oh, please,” Tony begged, taking a mug from the cabinet with one hand and gesturing with the devoured core in his other towards his team leader staring at him with wide eyes. “Not the kicked puppy look… If I take the last cup, I’ll make a new pot. I do know how to do that, Captain.”

“Tony, you’re…” Steve’s voice trailed off, the pure shock clear on every inch of his open features.

“Intelligent, rich, incredibly handsome?” Tony offered a descriptive with his trademark grin. “Pick one… Or seriously undercaffeinated, most accurate.” He slurped off the top third of the coffee in his mug with the ease and nonchalance of the true addict. The heat and the faintly burnt taste were totally irrelevant to the fastest possible delivery of caffeine to system. As his brain began to sidetrack along the possibilities of adapting caffeine to an implant delivery system, one word brought him back to full and current awareness.

“Walking.” Steve flushed almost as soon as he said it.

Tony’s eyes narrowed as he gazed at Rogers, flicking to take in the reactions of Barton and Romanov. “Yeah… Shield nurses aren’t really receptive to being used as a delivery service.”

Steve stood, a little too quickly, his chair scraping on the linoleum floor. “No, Tony, really. How are you walking?”

A straightforward frown answered the question, the intelligence behind dark brown eyes flicking through the possible causes for this line of questioning. The conclusions he was reaching were not pleasant… and were leading further into ‘not a hallucination’ territory that he didn’t want to explore. Tony slurped off the rest of his coffee, gesturing with his other hand as he bought himself time to respond. 

It turned out to be unnecessary as the door to their little depressing lounge slammed open, bouncing feebly off the wall before coming to a stop.

“Anthony!” Thor exclaimed his name with genuine delight. “The blessings of Asgard have been visited upon you and you are returned to a warrior’s strength.”

They all stared as the Norse possibly-alien-little-G god stalked into the room. Coulson followed him, looking like he’d breakfasted on a plate of particularly pungent lemons. 

Thor enfolded Tony’s outstretched hand in both of his, bringing it into his chest as he came to a halt. “This is a most glorious morning for the recovery of one such as thee.”

Tony pulled on his hand, refusing to meet the eyes of anyone in the room as he tried to wiggle it away. “Thor, we talked about this… enough with the maidenly clutching.” 

There was a moment of frowning compliance – that Tony used to quickly yank his hand away even though he lost his devoured apple core in the process – before Thor looked at the item he was holding and threw his head back into a laugh. “A most glorious day, indeed!”

Tony looked on, vaguely nauseous, as Thor devoured the core’s remains in two snapping bites. Shaking his head, he glanced past his teammate to look at the man who’d accompanied him. “Hey, Coulson, are we sure there really aren’t any drugs to temper him just a little?”

But Coulson didn’t crack a smile, either with his mouth or his unexpectedly expressive eyes. “Director Fury would like a word, Mr. Stark.”

Reading the threat of a tazer loud and clear in the gaze that held steady on him, Tony set the empty coffee mug down with casual agreement. He had the deep impression he wasn’t going to like these words, but didn’t allow his impression to change as he nodded to the other Avengers. “Cap, gentlemen, lady,” Tony strolled out the door, letting Coulson pull it closed behind them as he stopped in the hallway.

The armed guards told him exactly what he suspected about why Thor and Coulson had arrived together.

*~*

“That… was strange,” Steve summed up, after the door snapped closed behind Coulson. 

Natasha ignored him, but Clint appropriated the last of the coffee pot and just shrugged. “Coulson’s a little high strung.”

Steve shook his head. “No… I meant.. Tony was injured. Severely. And now he’s walking around fine?”

Thor dropped into the chair opposite his team leader with a smile that could power cities. “It is well that Anthony is recovered. It does not suit his station to be suppressed by such Midgardian limitations.”

“His. Station,” Steve sounded out carefully, like the meaning of the words might have changed in the decades he missed. 

“A noble of Asgard,” Thor tapped his fist against the table with a thump, “does not fall to such a feeble blow.”

“But,” Steve questioned, sitting back down slowly. “Tony Stark is from here… Just like the rest of us.”

Thor propped his elbows on the small table, leaning in. “Born to this realm, my nephew was indeed…”

Whatever he might have said next was lost behind Natasha’s loud exclamation of “Nephew?!”

*~*

“Have a seat, Mr. Stark.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at Fury’s tone and gave a pointed look to his armed escort. “Do I have a choice?”

“We all have choices,” the Director mused, his hands still on the desk. “Let’s choose to keep this a civil discussion.

With a shrug, Tony decided to keep ignoring the escort and seated himself in the chair across from Fury on the ‘visitor’ side of the desk. He slouched down, bringing one foot up to prop on the desk and following with the other to cross over it. “So how’s your morning going, Nick?”

Fury’s jaw tightened for an instant before he willed the strain away and nodded at the escort. The door closed behind them, Coulson remaining on the inside with his back to the wall. 

“According to Thor, it appears there was a little detail missing from your file, Consultant Stark.”

Tony just tipped his head back to return Coulson’s look with an upside down glance. “Thor should be evaluated for a head injury… or some mood stabilizers, Phil.”

Fury tapped at his desk before gesturing to the display on the wall. It activated, lighting up with a surveillance feed. Tony watched, face growing blank, as he saw his conversation with Thor and his worst fear was confirmed.

“So I guess it wasn’t a hallucination.”

“This,” Fury switched topics and triggered a medical scan to fill the screen, “was your back after yesterday’s incident with Loki’s attack.”

It didn’t take a professional to know that individual vertebrae shouldn’t be in that many pieces.

“I don’t believe we need another scan to know they probably don’t look like that anymore… With you walking around and all,” Fury summed up with an appropriate level of sarcasm.

Tony’s feet had slipped off the desk and he sat almost completely straight in the chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Your point?”

“My point is that you now pose an unacceptable risk to this facility.”

Holding the flat stare, Tony could feel the ice growing on Fury’s tone. “And so it seems my probationary period is at an end.”

“That would be correct,” Fury summed up. “Shield, and the Avengers, are no longer in need of your services.”

Tony stood, the arrogance creeping back into his expression. “I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but,” he shrugged, “it seems a predilection for lying is something I should be hesitant to entertain.”

Fury said nothing more as Stark crossed the few steps to the door. The billionaire stopped to raise an eyebrow at Coulson’s evaluating look. “Have fun babysitting the spandex brigade.”

Tony stepped out the door, back straight, head held high, and no consideration for anyone that may have been observing him. If there was an escort, they were beneath his notice. He would get his things and get back to his business. They could keep the Avengers, but Iron Man was all his.

*~*

Steve Rogers sat there, blinking at Thor as he finished his tale. Barton kept looking around the room, trying to spot the cameras, and Romanov had slipped out shortly after the original revelation.

The wrinkle in Steve’s forehead signified how deeply he was considering this new knowledge. “So what does this mean for us? I mean, the Avengers?”

Thor slapped his hand against the table and Steve automatically gripped it to keep it from falling over. “This, Captain, is why you are a worthy leader of warriors. The tactical considerations are your first thought. Truly, it is a fine day of peace… for my brother will no longer threaten Midgard.”

“Wait,” Clint interjected, with a clever follow-up of, “What?”

Thor looked at him with an expression that said ‘but isn’t this quite obvious?’ and replied, “No proper Asgardian would infringe upon the territory of another noble, particularly not his own child.”

“But you told us that Loki wasn’t really your brother… He’s not even from Asgard,” Steve argued.

“My brother,” Thor confessed, “has many flaws. But, in this, he will act with honor.”

Steve took a deep breath, letting it out on something very near a sigh. “I hope you’re right, Thor.”


End file.
